Tony Thompson has called for doping to be legalised because he believes it has become so rife in the sport.

The American heavyweight maintains his innocence despite failing a drugs test after his July 2013 win over David Price. He insists the banned substance hydrochlorothiazide entered his system through medication for high blood pressure.

American heavyweight Tony Thompson believes doping has become rife in the sport

But Thompson feels performance enhancing drugs are so common that one solution is to accept their use.

'Doping in any sport, but especially boxing, you have the people with money: the haves, the people with money, are using all the drugs they want,' he said.

'They're able to cheat and get away with it, so as a way to combat that, everybody can take whatever it is they want and declare it.

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'That way you give your opponent an opportunity to agree to the fight or don't agree to the fight.

'They know damn well that some of the top people that fight, in boxing, are still doing drugs and they're not doing anything about it because they can't catch 'em.

'As long as it don't kill a person or anything like that, you should be able to take whatever it is you wanna take, but again, you tell your opponent.

Thompson maintains his innocence despite failing a drugs test after his July 2013 win over David Price

'It's common. If you have enough money, you can pretty much cover up what the hell you want.

'You look at the bodies, of some of these guys, at some of these advanced ages, and you tell me, is it not a little fishy?

'That's the funny part about me, people telling me I'm doping. Can they not just take their eye test?. Can they not just look at my body and say 'Hey, guys? This one might not be what we think it is'. Let's not make it that.'

He says banned substance entered his system through medication for high blood pressure

Of his own failed drugs test – Thompson was given an 18-month ban by the British Boxing Board of Control after his second victory over Price – the American claims he prepared no differently for the first victory five months earlier.

He said: 'They showed everybody what I failed for: high blood pressure pills, man. Everybody seen my body the David Price fight, both fights. Everybody know I'm not taking no performing enhancing drugs. What I took was something prescribed by my doctor. High blood pressure pills.

'This is just terrible, man, and not only that, I feel sorry for David, because they keep giving these guys excuses as to why he lost, when he just lost to a better fighter.

'Come on, man? What I am using that's performance enhancing? If I'm using performance enhancing drugs then they ain't selling it for long 'cause it ain't working.

'I don't have to maintain anything, it says it all in the report what I failed for. There's no steroids, nothing like that, this is high blood pressure medicine, period.'